


Murder on the Star Destroyer Steadfast

by valda



Series: The Deaths of Allegiant General Pryde [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blaster Misfire, Blood, Conspiracy, Food Poisoning, Gen, Knives, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, POV Enric Pryde, Stabbing, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:28:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24828340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valda/pseuds/valda
Summary: Enric Pryde has a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day.
Relationships: Armitage Hux & Enric Pryde, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Series: The Deaths of Allegiant General Pryde [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1794328
Comments: 14
Kudos: 63





	Murder on the Star Destroyer Steadfast

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rudbeckia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudbeckia/gifts).



> Originally posted to Tumblr [here](https://cosleia.tumblr.com/post/621476590119010304/kill-pryde-accidentally-shot-with-his-own). There's some described violence, but I wouldn't call it graphic.

Enric Pryde was not a messy or forgetful man. He always kept his blaster on stun, per regulation; he always activated the safety when it wasn’t in use; and he always holstered it correctly. He could therefore not imagine how it had gone off in its holster without him even touching it, nor how it had managed to strike a vital artery, sending him collapsing to the durasteel in a growing pool of his own blood.

He would have died in seconds had the Supreme Leader not raised a hand and healed the wound with the Force; Pryde was left gasping in pain, filled with shock and confusion as the techs carted him off to medbay.

Worried that his blaster might have been sabotaged, that someone might be attempting to assassinate him, Pryde did not take his evening meal in the mess as usual that evening. He stayed in his own chambers and reconstituted his own meal from his store of rations instead. It smelled terrible and tasted worse, but at least he knew where it came from and who had prepared it.

This was little comfort when, hours later, he found himself curled up in a ball on the floor, wracked with pain. He was reaching for his comlink to contact medbay again when the hatch to his quarters flew open and Supreme Leader Kylo Ren strode in. Ren raised a hand toward Pryde as he had that morning, and Pryde felt the agonizing pain in his digestive system begin to subside. Then he felt the urgent need to expel waste from both ends of his body. The Supreme Leader was gone by the time he was finished in the ’fresher.

Throat raw and rear end burning, Pryde could not get comfortable either in bed or a chair, so he left his quarters entirely, hoping a stroll would distract him from his discomfort. He left his untrustworthy blaster behind.

His turns about the ship took him from the bridge to one of the hangars to the engine room. The low thrumming that indicated the ship was underway was calming; Pryde stepped out along a catwalk to truly _feel_ it.

In retrospect, closing his eyes was a very foolish idea, but at the time it seemed meditative, peaceful. But no sooner had his eyelids fluttered closed than he felt a rough shove against his arm and side. Then he was falling, plummeting, hurtling down, down, down—

His wild descent suddenly stopped, but his screaming didn’t, not for another several seconds. Eventually Pryde realized he was no longer falling. He opened his eyes and saw that Supreme Leader Ren was guiding him back up toward the catwalk with the Force.

“You’ve saved me three times, Supreme Leader,” Pryde gasped.

Ren, who was no longer wearing his repaired helmet, sneered and let out a huff. “I didn’t do it for you,” he said, and just as Pryde was about to reach the catwalk, he released the Force hold. It was only by desperately grasping at the ledge that Pryde managed not to fall again.

“Help,” Pryde squeaked out, feeling his fingers begin to slip. Tears pricked at his eyes. “Please.” But the Supreme Leader had turned away. Someone else was approaching. “General Hux!” Pryde called when he recognized who it was. “Help me!”

Hux stepped past Ren, gazing down at Pryde with eyes like ice. His lip curled in what looked like disgust—hardly the way a subordinate should conduct himself in front of a superior.

Pryde registered the pain before he realized what was happening. His fingers had been crushed, smashed, and he _howled_. He raised teary eyes back to General Hux just in time to watch the younger man’s boot come down again.

His ruined fingers lost their hold and he slipped off the edge and then he was falling again. Dizzy, he could barely think through the pain. Would Ren save him again? What did Hux think he was doing? Why was this happening to him, Enric Pryde, loyal servant of the Emperor? His body once again hurtled down, down, down, except now it didn’t stop, and he was plummeting into the ship’s drive core. Pryde vaguely remembered that this was the way Palpatine had supposedly died...perhaps he, too, would survive...

And then his descent started slowing, impossibly. He fell more and more slowly until he finally came to a dead stop in the middle of the engine core, surrounded by pulsing towers crackling with power and heat. He couldn’t move; his feet wouldn’t touch the ground.

“This is the end,” said Supreme Leader Ren, striding out into the open space where Pryde was suspended—again, apparently, by the Force. “This is what my beloved chose for you.”

There were more people now, First Order officers, some Pryde thought he recognized. Each person was carrying something; Pryde squinted, but all he could determine through his haze of pain was that the objects weren’t blasters.

“I chose,” said General Hux, appearing beside Leader Ren and taking his arm, “to let my people show you what they think of you.”

“And _we_ chose _this_ ,” one of the officers said, stepping closer to Pryde—and then more pain, white hot, sharp, and the officer drew back and Pryde saw a blade slowly ease out of his own body, covered in blood.

No sooner had that officer moved back than another one stepped forward and there was more blinding pain, and then it happened again, and again. They were stabbing him, they were taking turns stabbing him, and then they weren’t even taking turns but doing it all at once, and Pryde couldn’t keep track of all the places he’d been stabbed—stomach, side, back, chest, leg, arm, neck—he couldn’t think, couldn’t even _breathe—_ there was pain in all directions, everywhere—he sucked in air and it didn’t go anywhere; he almost could swear he heard it whistling out through his chest; they must have gotten deep, to his lungs—his mouth was full of blood, and he was choking on it, and he still couldn’t breathe, and he couldn’t see anymore, and it hurt, it hurt more than he could ever have imagined—

As darkness fully claimed Enric Pryde, he heard one final sound, strange and confusing. It was high and haughty and he couldn’t place it, and he died before it ended without knowing what it was.

The conspirators knew, though—it was General Hux’s laughter, loud and happy and free, and it filled them with such joy that they laughed too, standing in a circle around Pryde’s mutilated corpse.


End file.
